Unable or unwilling to directly confront its main antagonists – Russia and Iran – Washington has turned to cold war era tactics (and rhetoric), using proxies to fight wars they don’t dare fight on their own. In Libya, and now Syria, the US used its supposedly tame jihadists to overturn secular Arab leaders who didn’t follow Washington’s orders willingly. The big problem with their efforts to recruit suitable proxies, however, is that quality control is lacking.

This is especially evident in the Ukraine, where Washington has hooked up with a motley gang of ultra-nationalists, open fascists, and Ukrainian oligarchs. Yet the violent coup that ousted President Viktor Yanukovich was just the beginning as far as the War Party is concerned. The Obama administration has been under attack from fellow Democrats as well as McCainite Republicans to deliver some serious arms to Kiev – as well as the Syrian rebels – and the MH17 incident may well provide the political impetus for him to do so, at least in the case of the former.

Raimondo concludes with

Yet none of this obviates the real lesson of this horrific incident – which is that the superpowers’ reckless proxy wars are setting us up for a major conflict, a misstep that could end in starting World War III.

Whatever the details of how the seemingly incorrigible American elite political class have brought things to such a dark precipice, are not the subject of this diary. Today’s crop of jackasses – Obama, Kerry, McCain, etc. (oh, and let’s not forget Hillary Clinton) – are largely interchangeable with the leading lights {cough} {cough} of earlier generations. , and we don’t lose too much by simply stating that this class of elite, evil clowns are like the Energizer Bunny Rabbit, that keeps going, and going, and going.

If you want details, read Noam Chomsky, not metamars. ( :-) ).

MY FOCUS OF INQUIRY, RATHER, IS WHAT SHOULD AMERICAN ACTIVISTS BEEN DOING TO REIGN IN THESE CIVILIZATION THREATENING CLOWNS AND JACKASSES?

I’m not going to develop the argument, but simply “state without proof” that the most obvious thing that needed to have been done is that the whole warmongering apparatus should have been de-legitimized, via activist-citizens educating their fellow citizens, about false flag attacks, endless attempts at destabilization of non-lackey foreign countries, economic hit men, etc.

Americans who are aware of our dark and suppressed history do a piss poor job of educating the public, at large, about what they know.

Does anybody imagine that, if you went any neighborhood in America (outside Washington D.C.) and asked them if they knew about Victoria Nuland’s statement about $5 billion spent on the Ukrainian “democratic” project, or that the “chocolate king” was basically installed via a violent coup, that more than 10% of Americans would know the correct answers?

These are just “for instance” questions, the larger point being that American’s ignorance of their own government’s foreign policy horrors underscores the fact that our ruling elite have not been any where near delegitimized as people who deserve to be leading much of anything, much less the world’s pre-eminent military power. AND FURTHERMORE, IT’S FAR MORE RATIONAL TO BLAME USELESS AMERICAN ACTIVISTS FOR THIS STATE OF AFFAIRS, RATHER THAN THE ELITE CLASS, AS THEY HAVE NO MOTIVATION TO CHANGE THEIR OWN BEHAVIOR

If the American public had been properly educated via a useful American activist class, whenever any of the elite clowns opened their mouths about bringing “freedom and democracy” to the rest of the world (which lacks our fine form of government, ya see), they would be largely either laughed at, or ridiculed. That would have created a real political force that would have resulted in the election of less insane and sociopathic leaders.

===========================
CORRECTION:

I’m not going to develop the argument, but simply “state without proof” that the most obvious thing that needed to have been done is that they whole warmongering apparatus should have been legitimized,

A non-vanity statistic, in the context of this diary, would be the results of polls asking “Did you know that the US helped train ISIS fighters?”, or “Did you know that the Gulf of Tonkin, used to drag us into Vietnam in a big way, was basically a hoax?”, etc.

Other non-vanity statistics would be poll results of polls asking questions like “Are you willing to vote war mongers out of office?” ( or do you just wanna whine??), “Are you willing to commit X hours to defeat war monger incumbents in the next election?”, etc.

I take your point, metamars, and share the frustration. However, I’d like to pose another suggestion, that we take note of the occasions on which said ‘activist’ reporters change their tune – remembering how some of us ourselves have been swayed by false rhetoric in the past. The flak from the push of oligarchy to dominate the world is becoming too obvious for them, and that we can hope is the turning point.

We may mourn the carnage that still surrounds us as the violence perpetrated by the propaganda regime reaches climax and say, why didn’t they help us sooner than this? But if they can help us now, God, let them do so full force as long as they have the podium!

I couldn’t add this to your post on Wayne Madsen from July 17th, metamars, but just read the following at rt.com:

Russia urges to probe the participation of the mercenaries from the EU in Ukraine’s conflict

Russian Foreign ministry demands the authorities of Sweden, Finland, France and Baltic states to carry out an investigation to discover if mercenaries of these countries are taking part in military action in eastern Ukraine. The statement of the ministry followed the article from the Italian news outlet Il Giornale. The publication said that mercenaries from these countries fought at the side of Kiev troops. They were a part of the so-called Azov battalion which is backed by Ukraine’s oligarch Igor Kolomoisky.”If the information in this publication is true, then it becomes a new confirmation that foreign militants are involved in the armed Ukraine’s conflict at the intentional level,” said the Foreign Ministry.

IT’S FAR MORE RATIONAL TO BLAME USELESS AMERICAN ACTIVISTS FOR THIS STATE OF AFFAIRS

In a nutshell, and I do mean nutshell, meta’s definition of “rational” is to blame the good people for trying but failing to rid the world of the evil the bad people do instead of blaming the bad people for acting evilly and fighting back with every resource at their disposal so they can keep on acting evilly.

Now I’ll just “state without proof” that he does this in the majority of his posts. Why?

Yes, I am frustrated. I see lots of opportunities for correction, but the years and decades go by, and the sorts of people who should be leading the charge are not doing so, not even trying many things that I consider obvious, say on an experimental basis.

Meanwhile, the dead bodies keep piling up (metaphorically speaking), and the flirtation with nuclear war continues. Risking a nuclear exchange with Russia is particularly stupid. Russia is a natural ally of the United State, who willingly and bloodlessly dissolved their empire, but made the mistake of trusting US elites that NATO would not be expanded eastwards.

Some problems are hard, and I’m sympathetic to a high level of cluelessness regarding them. (First and foremost, Islamic extremism, which in a nuclear age could easily ruin your whole millenium.)

Russia should have been EASY. Essentially, a near complete non-problem. Creating a huge problem, when there should have been none, takes not only our hubristic and amoral elites, it also takes our clueless activist class to offer essentially no resistance to the elites.

It’s irrational to make moral arguments to people who are fundamentally immoral, and consider it part of their job description to manage us little people (the “bewildered herd”). They are not only immoral, they are deceitful, and their lives are basically based on creating false image of themselves.

The activist class is supposed to be moral, and amenable to arguments based on morality. cmauken, in comment #5, assumes that all (or most) activists are co-opted. You are on the other extreme, apparently assuming not only good intentions (implying they’re not coopted), but also “skill” in their chosen vocations.

What I am saying is that the honest ones (who are not co-opted) are not “skill”-full, at all, but strategically inept.

If you have a problem with me calling out the honest ones for their ineptness, that’s your problem.

I have a problem with non-activists who have accomplished less than nothing advising and criticizing activists so forcefully and so condescendingly. I suppose you’d spit on Spartacus’ grave simply because he ineptly failed. Ultimately, I think your unwarranted attacks serve no good purpose.

Agree that Russia should not have been a problem. Relations with the government of this nation have been gravely mishandled since, (and actually before), the break up of the Soviet Union. I shudder to contemplate what agenda lies behind the provocation of Russia by the US in recent months.

I would also agree that Islamic extremism is a danger, but only in the case of genuine extremism and not the kind where this label has been applied by the US Government as and when it suits their purpose.(Which seems to happen rather often.)

Returning to the matter of delegitimizing American warmongers, might I suggest once again that Russia is engaged in precisely that effort right now, and what do we hear at fdl??

This is the forum for such a debate, and my frustration stems not from hubris (I hope) but from concern for my children and their children in whatever shape world we shall leave them.

We need to step up to the plate and make a sober analysis of the situation in Ukraine, where an airliner’s demise has raised political issues that are as important as those raised during the Cuban missile crisis. Adelai Stevenson then stood on the floor of the UN, and unlike Colin Powell, he spoke the truth, with aerial photographs to prove the case that the Russians indeed had installed live missiles in Cuba pointed at the US.

Please, people, stop arguing unimportant ego matters and look carefully at the following Russian military report of their overview of what happened to that plane and its passingers:

We need to step up to the plate and make a sober analysis of the situation in Ukraine

Sure. However, when I talk about delegitimization of war mongers, I mean an ongoing, public-to-public educational program, with real metrics to measure degree of success. This should be a process, part of a larger collection of ongoing processes to improve the people within our government. And the end goal is HUGE meme penetration, judged with respect to the public as a whole. Not merely a limited blog community.

No kid should ever graduate high school in the US, without knowing the US’ sordid history of false flags, economic hitmen, etc. Or, at least, without having been exposed to such memes.

By “education”, I don’t mean having people sit in classrooms. I mean pamphleting, slick but well documented youtube videos/documentaries, and PROMOTION, PROMOTION, PROMOTION.

By “PROMOTION”, I mean even “gimmicky” things, like game shows. You know, game shows with $$cash prizes. Just like a lot of people wouldn’t care about the outcome of sports events unless they could bet $$ for or against the “spread”, a lot of people would never pay attention to a political teaching unless they’re ‘inspired’ by either $$cash for themselves, or vicariously enjoying the competition for $$cash.

Where would the $$cash come from? From crowd-funding. A solar roads project was crowd-funded to the tune of over $2 million.

Do you think it’d be hard to get people to participate in a game show with a $million prize – a game show which exposed the war mongers for who and what they are? I don’t – even if the venue for the game show was purely on the internet.

(In an ideal world, no gimmicks would be necessary. In the real world in which we live, there are multitudes of the public, who we need to at least minimally engage in the public process, who are not idealistic, not public spirited, not cerebral; maybe they’re quite selfish, etc. I used to live in a house with 2 teenagers, who had not an ounce of political curiosity between them. However, they were regular views of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, and imbibed poltics that way, even in spite of their incuriosity.)

We don’t own the mainstream media, and as a short and medium term goal, that’s not worth even fighting for, IMO. However, we
a) live in a “target rich environment” and
b) have other viable means of meme propagation

FDL may be an exciting place, but if you consider the numbers, it’s a smallish microcosm of the larger US society. There is no coordinated plan (AFAICT) to take any insights from out FDL fishbowl, and inject those memes into the larger society. Certainly not on an ongoing basis. Certainly not with national polls done to gauge where we are with respect to some avowed and quantitative meme-penetration goal. (Which, in fairness, would require a significant budget; hence, this aspect – polling – is something FDL shouldn’t attempt on its own.)

meta, you have resorted to name-calling again. I think that’s a bad habit. And here’s the full quote, lest you lie by omission: “I have a problem with non-activists who have accomplished less than nothing advising and criticizing activists so forcefully and so condescendingly.” If you have a problem with me calling out these chair-bound blowhards for their unearned self-authority then that’s your problem.

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